10 Small Board Games I Want To Play

10. Tasso Banana

This looks like a silly little game, and I like silly little games. In Tasso Banana you stack bananas onto cards. You can’t stack it on a banana leaf. And if you stack your banana balancing it on two other bananas you take an extra turn. First to get rid of all your bananas and you win the game. That just sounds like a silly good time. And I am always here for a silly good time. It’s also one that I think I my kid might like too, so it could be a family game afternoon sometime and make it easier than some to get played.

9. Circus Flohcati

Who doesn’t love a game with the theme of a flea circus? Firstly, it is a great silly theme and the new 25th Century/Playte version of the game doesn’t look horrifying like some of the older versions do. In this game you are trying to collect cards. You score points for collecting sets of three and then the highest value cad you have of each color. It sounds like a nice simple game but one that could be a very fun puzzle to play.

8. Sequoia

I like a lot of Allplay’s little box games. And I hope the same will be true with Sequoia. This one is supposed to be a very fast game where you are trying to grow the tallest trees in a few different areas. But you roll dice to determine which forests you are going to place on. And you need to determine when to stop fighting over a forest and pivot to another because only first and second get the points for that forest. And if you tie, you are going to need to be fighting some more to end the game. The tie rules are the only part where I wonder if I’m going to enjoy this game.

7. Vampire Queen

This is a card shedding game. By that I mean that you want to empty your hand or deck of cards faster than other people. To do that, you are trying to beat the cards that were played before you. So if someone plays two threes you might play two fours, for example. Plus there are Vampire Slayers in the mix and Vampire Queens. The Vampire Queen is the number of whatever cards you play. So once someone gets rid of all their cards, you tally up the points for the other players and play five times. It sounds again simple, which I expect from a small game and easy to teach and play.

6. Pioneer Rails

A roll and write game, and not the last on the list. Though all of them on the list are technically flip and write games. This one is about building our a railway system in the old west. You are trying to build out poker hands and then using the poker cards flipped to build out your train routes and connect different locations. The more you can connect the more bonusses you get and end game scoring that you get. This is one that can be played solo so it is one that I should probably play on stream. I like the sound of it a lot and I enjoy a good roll and write style game.

5. Schadenfreude

Do you expect to see trick taking games on the list, you should. This one I got intrigued by when someone on the Dice Tower talked about it. It sounds like a pretty straightforward trick taking game. You want to win as many tricks as you can. But the twist is that might not be quite true. You want to win as many as you can without going over a point total. So it is a closest without going over that is going to be the challenge. How close can you get to that total and take home the win, or will you fly to close to the sun and get burned?

4. The Gang

This one I know has gotten some mixed reviews but it sounds unique. This is a cooperative poker hand building game. The first of two games about poker coming in a row here. For it to be a cooperative game is very cool and that is part of why I picked it up. I like the poker theme as well for the game. And I think the idea of poker hands is something that people in my game group are going to catch onto pretty quickly. So I want to get this one played and see if it’s a game for me or not.

3. Fliptown

This is an old west themed roll and write game. Though, it’s done using a deck of cards versus rolling some dice. So I’m very intrigued by it. You flip three cards and each card gets used for something different. With one card you determine which part of the board to activate, based on the suit of that card. Then for another one you keep it and are creating a poker hand. And the final one is the one that you use to fill in a spot in that part of the board you chose to activate. That just sounds like a very interesting thing.

2. Welcome to the Moon

I think that I need to play this one on stream. This is a roll and write game that kind of uses the Welcome To… system for it. But it’s its own unique game which is fun. And it’s a campaign game as well. For that reason alone I should play it on stream and see how well I can do. You play over a number of maps and see how well you can do. I’m not sure if you need to hit a certain target to advance, or how it works kind of as you advance. Though, as I write this, I suspect it is going to be a campaign game like Paper Dungeons is a campaign game.

1. Cat in the Box

This is a trick taking game and it’s one that I really should get played because it sounds so unique. In Cat in a Box there is a twist on your standard trick taking. Your cards don’t have a suit on them. You pick the suit of the card when you play it. And you decide when you are going to be short suited. Of course, this might mean that you have a four in your hand and have declared you are out of a suit and now can’t play that four, and thus you create a paradox.

Plus there is another element to the game. You get points for tricks, but you also get points for creating areas on the board. Basically, there is a board to track what cards have been played. And if you can get your cards played in the right way you will score additional points as well. Another element that is really unique about the game.

Final Thoughts

I know I could have made a list of twenty or thirty small games. It is so easy to pick them up and just add them to a collection. Do I want a game that I can get for cheap and see if I like it? Why yes, I always want to find more games like that because I don’t know when I’ll find a game. Plus it is easy for me to take these games to play with family or friends wherever because they don’t take up much room.

Obviously I put these in an order. But kind of like I did with that list of five games, I think it was, that I wanted to play, which is most likely to get played? As much as I want to play Cat in the Box, I think the some others, like Circus Flohcati, Sequoia, and the roll and writes Welcome to the Moon, Pioneer Rails and Fliptown are more likely to be played. And I want to play all of them, so it’s not like it’s a bad thing. What is a small game you want to play?

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Four Incoming Crowdfunding Games

Let’s go from little to biggest. The little ones, no issue fitting on the shelf, the biggest one, well, I’ll find a spot for it.

Fork

FORK is a little trick taking game, I believe, if I remember correctly, it stands for Fox, Owl, Rabbit, Kale. And that determines who wins the trick. Plus there is a terrain type, so if I have a creature, let’s say Owl, or the matching terrain type I beat one that isn’t.

It looks like a pretty simple trick taking game, but there was a twist that intrigued me, and more of a twist than just being the declared terrain type that sets up the trump suit. If I remember correctly, you might be able to block someone taking something if you played a Fox when they played a Fox. The foxes chased each other away or something like that I feel was the twist. I’ll have to see when it comes in.

Fliptown

Fliptown is going to be a roll and write (or flip and write) game where you are in an old west setting. The aesthetics of this one drew me in, especially because you determine what you do with playing cards. And each round three playing cards are flipped out. One of the cards, you choose, determine which of the boards you are on. Another the action you take, and the third the poker hand you’re building.

I like this idea of needing to think about these three areas. It adds in a bit of complexity to the game. And while it offers you more choices than Welcome To… does, at least with how you divide card actions, it offers a lot of choice like Welcome To… And I like the look of that in the game. Some roll and write games provide good choice, others, a bit less so.

Roll Player Adventures – Gulpax’s Secret

Now the one crowdfunding game on the list that is here already. A Roll Player Adventures expansion. If we hadn’t just started Vampire the Masquerade Chapters, I might be going back to this right away. But this is a whole new campaign for Roll Player Adventures with an updated rulebook. Though, compared to some games, I haven’t heard that this is a massive change to the rulebook, probably clarifying some.

This campaign takes place prior to the events of the main Roll Player Adventures. So that is always a bit of a question mark to me. How will it make you feel like you have choice and agency. It isn’t possible to do anything that’d affect the main game, unless they built that into it and you’d want to then replay the main game. So I hope that they do a good job of making it feel meaningful, but not like it’s undone what we’ve already done.

Marvel Zombies

Finally the monster among the group, zombies being the main monster in this game. Though from the zombies perspective the humans are monsters. This is a game that I got to play twice at CMON Expo and it was a great game both times. And I also got to win one time and then lose another time, so it wasn’t just an easy game.

I really like playing as the zombies and needing to take out bystanders and hordes of SHIELD agents who are trying to mess you up. And each superhero zombie has their own unique powers as well which I thought was fun. The progression of the game is great as well. It makes me wish that I’d backed it at the level with the giant Galactus.

But I also am glad that I didn’t. I got basically everything else except Galactus. I think there is a special character pack that I didn’t get. It was some specific artist and I thought, that looks fine but I don’t need it at that price. Even with not getting those things, it’s still coming in two boxes, and I mean shipping boxes. And those boxes will not be small, in fact they will be quite huge, so I need to find a good chunk of space.

Too Many Games, No Enough Space

Each of these games, I am excited to have come in. Some of them are going to be easier to get to the table than others. Marvel Zombies is going to be one of them that is harder. Or at least it is going to be harder to get all the content of that to the table just because there is so much content for it. And Gulpax’s Secret is going to be harder as well as a campaign game.

But FORK and Fliptown I hope to get to the table soon. And I realized that another game is getting close. It isn’t shipping yet, but Twenty Strong from Chip Theory Games just asked me to confirm my address. Since that happened, that is getting close as well. Maybe should have been a list of five games.

Which is the one that you’d want to play first?

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The $1 Crowdfunding Pledge

Let’s talk about the $1 pledge level. Why do I pledge at that level sometimes, and how often do I get more?

So what is a $1 pledge? It is basically a cheap way to get the updates on a Kickstarter campaign. With Gamefound you can follow along if you subscribe to it. But Kickstarter, is is $1 and often times it gives you access to the pledge manager as well.

The nice thing about a $1 pledge is that you don’t need all the money at once. If both Final Girl and Marvel Zombies run at the same time – they did – then you don’t need to give both of them a couple hundred dollars right at the same time. You back $1 now you can get one now and save up for the other one later.

But how often do I back for $1, once in a while, and I’d say maybe 2 out of the 6-7 that I did that with, I ended up adding in the pledge manager. One, for sure, that I did was The Witcher: Old World. And I believe there was another that I added. I don’t care enough, most of the time, to do $1 and get the updates.

The Drink

A Negroni again. It’s such a good drink, again a warm day and one that is nice to have on a day like that. But a good drink to have stuff around for. It is really one that I like to sip while grilling as well. On a hot summer day it is refreshing and with some ice in there, it doesn’t feel water down when the ice melts.

Upcoming Streams

Tomorrow I’ll be streaming, I think my plan is more Paper Dungeons. So join for some fun to play along. I’m still working my way through that campaign.

I talked about this on the stream, and maybe I’ll talk about it more tomorrow. But I am getting a gaming table with a topper. That will allow for me to leave a bigger campaign game set-up on the lower level and put the top on when I want to play something else. So once that comes, I am going to be getting back to streaming a larger game.

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Pros

• Price Point
• Print and Play
• Using a Deck of Cards
• Another Roll and Write
• Solo

Cons

• Another Roll and Write
• Looks Like a Lot Going On
• 4 Player Max

The Page

I’ve backed a lot of Print and Play roll and write games. And while this is not only a print and play, this page is clearly done by someone who is more than just that. The layout of the page is nice, and the graphic design works well.

And, because Fliptown is just a roll and write game with no minis, you get to the game play immediately. That means that I can scroll only a little on the page. I really appreciate that.

And there is more thought than that to the page. But it’s more thoughts to the game. In particular, a custom deck of cards, dry erase boards. Those are things that I kind of expect now in a roll and write game. I have a laminator when a roll and write doesn’t come with dry erase, but that should be standard at this point. Yes, it might cost a little bit more, but also, you don’t need to print a stack of 100 sheets.

The Game

The game itself, I will say it looks intense and like there is a lot to do in the game. The board is basically split into four parts. And you can maybe guess why that is the case. It’s split into four so that you use a part depending on the suit that you pick. That makes sense and is going to give the roll and write more of a thematic feel.

So on a round it looks like every player goes at once, and important thing for me in a roll and write. They use the three cards that are flipped over. One for the suit, the part of the board you go to. Another for the number, which will be what you activate. And the final one is building up a poker hand? I don’t know what the poker hand is for.

Back or Brick

I really like my roll and write games, so Fliptown is a Back for me. And I think that it can be a good back especially if you do the print and play version. I did bump up my pledge to a physical copy though. The reason, I love my roll and write games.

But for $5, you can print everything off, you just need a standard deck of cards for the random element. That is an amazing deal. I’m a big proponent of print and play roll and write games. Granted, I need to print off several of them and start to play them. But for $5, I get a game where I can help support someone’s passion project. And while Fliptown is bigger and I expect to see it in retail, if you just want to try sooner, that $5 pledge level is amazing.

Is Fliptown a Back or Brick for you?

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